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Republican Leaders Map a Strategy to Derail...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-party.html
6 hours ago ... If aggressive efforts to deny Mr. Trump the presidential nomination fail, the party leaders say they will try to field an independent candidate for ...
Republican leaders adamantly opposed to Donald J. Trump’s
candidacy are preparing a 100-day campaign to deny him the presidential
nomination, starting with an aggressive battle in Wisconsin’s April 5
primary and extending into the summer, with a delegate-by-delegate
lobbying effort that would cast Mr. Trump as a calamitous choice for the
general election.
Recognizing
that Mr. Trump has seized a formidable advantage in the race, they say
that an effort to block him would rely on an array of desperation
measures, the political equivalent of guerrilla fighting.
There
is no longer room for error or delay, the anti-Trump forces say, and
without a flawlessly executed plan of attack, he could well become
unstoppable.
But should
that effort falter, leading conservatives are prepared to field an
independent candidate in the general election, to
defend Republican principles and offer traditional conservatives an
alternative to Mr. Trump’s hard-edged populism. They described their
plans in interviews after Mr. Trump’s victories last Tuesday in Florida
and three other states.
The
names of a few well-known conservatives have been offered up in recent
days as potential third-party standard-bearers, and William Kristol,
editor of The Weekly Standard, has circulated a memo to a small number
of conservative allies detailing the process by which an independent
candidate could get on general-election ballots across the country.
Among
the recruits under discussion are Tom Coburn, a former Oklahoma senator
who has told associates that he would be open to running, and Rick
Perry, the former Texas governor who was suggested as a possible
third-party candidate at a meeting of conservative activists on Thursday
in Washington.
Mr. Coburn, who left the Senate early last year to receive treatment for cancer,
said in an interview that Mr. Trump “needs to be stopped” and that he
expected to back an independent candidate against him. He said he had
little appetite for a campaign of his own, but did not flatly rule one
out.
Continue reading the main story
“I’m going to support that person,” Mr. Coburn said, “and I don’t expect that person to be me.”
Graphic: Rubio’s Exit Leaves Trump With an Open Path to 1,237 Delegates
Trump
opponents convened a series of war councils last week to pinpoint his
biggest vulnerabilities and consider whether to endorse one of his two
remaining opponents, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.
Mr.
Trump has a delegate lead of about 250 over Mr. Cruz, the second-place
candidate, but he has repeatedly acted in ways that push party leaders
farther from his camp. On Thursday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan sternly
admonished him for saying his supporters would riot
if Republicans nominated someone else, the latest in a series of
remarks Mr. Trump has made that seemed to encourage or condone violence.
David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, which has spent millions on ads
attacking Mr. Trump, said his group met on Wednesday and concluded it
was still possible to avert Mr. Trump’s nomination. The group plans a
comprehensive study of Trump supporters to sharpen a message aimed at
driving them away from him.
“This
is still a winnable race for a free-market conservative that’s not
Donald Trump,” Mr. McIntosh said, adding, “It’s not a layup, but there’s
a clear path to victory.”
A Delegate War
Central
to this plan is stopping Mr. Trump in Wisconsin, the next major
showdown after contests that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz are expected to
split this week in Arizona and Utah.
On
Thursday, the Club for Growth sent a three-page memo to influential
Republican donors promising to spend as much as $2 million in Wisconsin
and arguing that “the only viable option to defeat Donald Trump is Ted
Cruz.”
The
memo conceded it was “very unlikely” that Mr. Cruz could overtake Mr.
Trump in the delegate count, but outlined a strategy to deny Mr. Trump
the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the nomination before the
convention in Cleveland in July.
Mr.
Cruz and Mr. Kasich also see the Wisconsin primary as pivotal. Mr.
Cruz’s campaign is dispatching additional staff members there and
opening a “Camp Cruz” to house volunteers. The campaign will begin
running ads there in the next few days, aiming to get a head start on
Mr. Trump in the state.
Beginning
with Wisconsin, the race moves into states that apportion delegates
based on who wins in each congressional district, which would allow
anti-Trump forces to peel delegates away from him in states like New
York and California, where he is expected to run strong. A few of the
remaining winner-take-all states, like Montana and South Dakota, appear
friendly to Mr. Cruz.
Anti-Trump
Republicans said they would use the six weeks between the last
primaries and the mid-July convention to woo individual delegates.
A
number of states, including Pennsylvania and Colorado, send large
numbers of uncommitted delegates to the convention, making those party
regulars especially ripe targets for courtship. Other states will be
sending delegates bound to candidates who have left the race, like
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeb Bush. Those delegates could be
persuaded to vote for Mr. Cruz or Mr. Kasich after the first ballot.
To
justify rejecting Mr. Trump in Cleveland, Republicans say they will
have to convince both delegates and the public that it was not the
party’s obligation to hand him a nomination he did not secure on his
own.
“The
burden is on Trump, not the party, if he fails to clinch the
nomination,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises the
House leadership. “He has presented himself as the ultimate dealmaker,
and it’s on him to close this one.”
Mr.
Trump has said that he expects to win a majority of the delegates
before Cleveland, and that if he falls just short it would be
unconscionable for the party to nominate someone else.
A Split Opposition
Mr.
Trump’s hand has been strengthened by disagreements within the
stop-Trump forces, which fall along familiar lines: Conservative
activists are uneasy with the party establishment and favor Mr. Cruz,
while many Republican elites have warmed to Mr. Kasich, recoiling from
those they perceive as ideological purists.
Mitt
Romney, the party’s nominee in 2012, attempted to bridge that divide on
Friday by revealing that he would support Mr. Cruz in Utah and warning
that “a vote for Governor Kasich in future contests makes it extremely
likely that Trump-ism would prevail.” But contempt for Mr. Cruz runs
deep in Washington. Since the withdrawal of Mr. Rubio, who had the
support of many fellow senators, just one has endorsed Mr. Cruz.
Graphic: 2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results
About
two dozen conservative leaders met Thursday at a private club in
Washington, where some pushed for the group to come out for Mr. Cruz to
rebut the perception that the stop-Trump campaign was an establishment
plot. “If we leave here supporting Cruz, then we’re anti-establishment,”
said one participant, who could be heard by a reporter outside.
But
the group failed to agree on an endorsement, instead pleading for Mr.
Kasich and Mr. Cruz to avoid competing in states where one of them is
favored. “They’re going to have to come to terms and lay off each
other,” said Erick Erickson, an influential conservative commentator,
who convened the meeting.
Yet
in a sign that there is no such détente, Mr. Kasich ran ads and
campaigned in Utah this weekend, angering aides to Mr. Cruz, who hopes
to reach the 50 percent threshold needed to claim all the state’s
delegates. Mr. Kasich also refused to participate in a one-on-one
debate, without Mr. Trump — denying them both considerable media
exposure and an important online fund-raising opportunity.
But
Mr. Kasich’s backers have no appetite for a head-to-head ideological
fight with Mr. Cruz on national television. They are focused on winning
delegates wherever they can so that nobody reaches a majority before
Cleveland, where Mr. Kasich’s supporters plan to argue that he is the
only electable Republican contender.
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Abandoning the Party
For
Republicans opposed to Mr. Trump under any circumstances, a third-party
campaign offers a last refuge. Such a candidacy might gain support from
high levels of the party: Mr. Romney has said he would be inclined to
vote for a third candidate over Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Advisers
to Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who considered
an independent run, concluded that petition gathering would have to
begin by early March for a candidate to appear on November ballots in
all 50 states.
But
an independent could still get on ballots in dozens of states — or
perhaps seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party, which is already
on the ballot in most states and does not pick a candidate until late
May.
Mr.
Kristol, a leading critic of Mr. Trump, said in an interview that he
believed it was not too late to put forward a viable independent
candidacy. “I think the ballot access question is manageable,” he said.
“The big question is, who’s the candidate?”
At
the meeting in Washington Thursday, Mr. Perry’s name was raised among
several options, but his associates said that while he has fielded
inquiries, he remains committed to backing Mr. Cruz.
Mr.
Erickson described Mr. Perry as a “consensus choice” for an independent
campaign: “He would win Texas and at least obstruct Trump.”
Nicholas
Sarwark, chairman of the national Libertarian Party’s executive body,
said its convention in Orlando could be open to a late entrant. But
several candidates are already pursuing the nomination, including Gary
Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who was the party’s 2012
nominee.
“Theoretically, someone could come in,” Mr. Sarwark said, adding, “But you’d better be a pretty impressive man off the street.”
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